MINERVA

MARTHA SPRACKLAND

MINERVA / Series I:Materials curates poetry PDFs that use a specific thread of 'material' running throughout 4 poems in some way.

Martha, [why] On Sharks:

'The mako shark is sort of my familiar, I suppose. In a more general way I'm fascinated by sharks – I love their shape and their movement, their dark, strange environments, the near-absolute unknowability of their lives; but there's one particular shark who follows me around. Its presence is ambivalent – the shark is sometimes a stand-in for my anxiety, compulsions and intrusive thoughts (I can't explain why). I imagine it at my shoulder, slowly turning the air as it swims with me everywhere I go, simultaneously reassuring and ominous, comforting and yet psychically dangerous, deeply symbolic to the point of mythology. It's a great word, as well, isn't it, shark – a sort of cutting-blade the shape of its own fin.'

MARTHA SPRACKLAND

MINERVA / Series I:Materials curates poetry PDFs that use a specific thread of 'material' running throughout 4 poems in some way.

Martha, [why] On Sharks:

'The mako shark is sort of my familiar, I suppose. In a more general way I'm fascinated by sharks – I love their shape and their movement, their dark, strange environments, the near-absolute unknowability of their lives; but there's one particular shark who follows me around. Its presence is ambivalent – the shark is sometimes a stand-in for my anxiety, compulsions and intrusive thoughts (I can't explain why). I imagine it at my shoulder, slowly turning the air as it swims with me everywhere I go, simultaneously reassuring and ominous, comforting and yet psychically dangerous, deeply symbolic to the point of mythology. It's a great word, as well, isn't it, shark – a sort of cutting-blade the shape of its own fin.'